The Globe doesn't like getting scooped

Their other favorite is "according to a local community newspaper."

Ask any reporter of "a local TV station" or "a local radio station" if they've ever been improperly credited with a story they developed. Then again, how many of these TV or radio stations ever acknowledge how much of their news content is rewritten out of the Globe or the Herald?

I would like to think that good journalistic practice is to credit your sources whomever they are, though I think there is enough gray area to allow people on both sides of the blogosphere-MSM fence to talk past one another.

I think the tendency of the blogosphere is to look at the almighty time stamp as proof of a "scoop," and I guess in a sense it is. However, it does not then necessarily follow that a MSM story on the same or related subject drew upon the blog as a source. The MSM outfit may have been independently mining the same sources for the same story and just not been ready to go with it until after the blog. To use an extreme example, I don't think the L.A. Times was duty bound to credit TMZ for declaring Michael Jackson dead first -- not when it was independently contacting its own family and medical sources. It all comes down to a good-faith representation of the degree to which you relied upon the blog to get your material.

With all due respect, Ian, your Community Magazines example seems to be a particularly poor example of an MSM operation stealing your stuff. This is GateHouse's OWN EMPLOYEE, after all. We GateHouse editors and reporters may be clueless about a lot of things, but at least give us credit for being able to figure out who our own company has hired, and what his or her background is. It's pure speculation on my part, but I would suspect that the explanation of the lag time between your post and GateHouse's story could be as simple as the news staff of the Newton Tab having had more compelling subjects to write about than to do a self-promotional piece about a new magazine ad-sales chief.

I hope, anyway, that, whatever side of the fence we are on, we are generally doing what we do to inform, educate or entertain our readers. In the process of doing that, we should have enough respect for one another's work to give credit where credit is due (and I am glad Adam is calling attention to the Boston Globe's falling short of doing that in Dan Kennedy's case). But it also strikes me that Dan's reaction to not being given proper credit by the Globe -- bemusement, perhaps, but not moral outrage -- is appropriate. It speaks to the fact that Dan places a higher priority on telling important stories than achieving personal glory. This, it would seem to me, is the proper approach for journalists of all stripe, "citizen" or otherwise.